Murder charge filed against Oklahoma politician’s son

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Prosecutors filed a first-degree murder charge Monday against a man accused of fatally stabbing his father, Oklahoma Labor Commissioner Mark Costello, during an attack at a fast-food restaurant. Police say Christian Costello, 26, stabbed his father repeatedly, including at least once in the head, in front of horrified witnesses, after meeting his parents at a Braum’s grill and ice cream shop.

Friends say Christian may have weighed on Mark Costello’s mind over the weekend as he visited Columbus, Ohio for the annual summit of the Koch brothers’ right-wing Americans for Prosperity group. “He’d be committed for two or three weeks, get stable, and they’d cut him loose and keep their fingers crossed nothing would happen”. Witnesses said the attack continued after Mark Costello ran into the parking lot where his wife, Cathy Costello, tried to intervene and stop the assault. “Homicide detectives were summoned to the scene, and interviewed at least 17 witnesses, all of whom stated they observed the defendant stabbing the victim with a small knife,” police inspector Lyndell Easley wrote in an affidavit attached to the charge.

Relations issued a press release via a spokesman on Monday saying they could not adequately categorical the “shock and unhappiness” they have been feeling. The family said in a statement Aug. 24 that Christian Costello “struggles with a mental health disease.” The victim died Aug. 23 at a hospital from stab wounds to the neck. Ed Blau, Christian Costello’s attorney of record on a pending misdemeanor charge of “outraging public decency” said he expects a public defender will be assigned to represent Costello on the murder charge.

He brought the knife with him to the location, and also requested to speak with Commissioner Costello alone, separating him from another family member who was present at the restaurant. The Oklahoman reviewed mental health records from Christian Costello’s stay at Griffin Memorial Hospital last October and his treatment at the Oklahoma County Crisis Intervention Center in November and December. At the least one witness knocked Christian Costello off-balance with a vehicle, and others held him down till officers arrived, the police spokesman stated.

A Bartlesville native and the founder of a telephone software company, Mark Costello was apparently considering running for lieutenant governor in 2018. In a plea bargain over a 2012 driving under the influence of drugs charge, Christian Costello disclosed that he had once been confined for three months so he could be treated for mental illness and that he was taking mood stabilizers, according to court records obtained by The Associated Press. Costello was first elected as Labor Commissioner in November 2010, and then re-elected in 2014. “Flags on state property will be lowered to half-staff through Friday in honor of Mark Costello’s life and service to the people of Oklahoma”. He went to an addiction wellness center in Louisiana in 2011, the records show. “I observed him chewing on two feathers,” wrote a police officer who responded to a report about a man exposing himself. “I then had the subject sit on a curb and spit out what he was chewing on.

He then removed the feathers and what appeared to be dandelions and other weeds from his mouth.” He has claimed his body is a host for different spirits. Schizoaffective disorder is characterized primarily by symptoms of schizophrenia, such as hallucinations or delusions, and symptoms of a mood disorder, such as mania and depression, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.